Photoshoot on an afternoon walk

These photos were taken by my mum during a shoot mixed in with an afternoon walk. After going to this place the day before I knew what colours would go with the backdrops: reds, browns and greens. And so, behold: an outfit comprised of black tights, vintage boots (were my mum's), a green silk top my mum found in a charity shop, the belt was my grandma's, the bag is Colorado from a charity shop, and I recently made the skirt from a Supré halter dress that I bought on sale a couple of years ago.

As you might notice (or may have already noticed) - I love charity shops. I have been searching through the racks of clothes and stacks of shoes of them since I was six. At that age I thought charity shops to be the epitome of boredom, and only went into them with my mum while she searched for vintage or clothes to up-cycle. But now sometimes it's me dragging her through them. I became experienced in finding things, determining vintage and an item's era, knowing materials and good brands, etc. Just the other day my mum and I looked through the local ones and I managed to find a vintage book collection including: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Oliver Twist, Gulliver's Travels, and Oscar Wilde stories - the whole lot for two dollars! So I've got some reading to do. Although I'm already reading three books...Sir Athur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Virginia Woolf's A room of one's own and Rachel Hartman's Seraphina (the first modern book I've read in ages.) So, a lot of reading to do.
Speaking of which, I think I'm going to go make a cup tea and relax with a book (is there anything better?)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

 During the time my sister was in Melbourne for a few days and my darling godsister - Jazz, was staying over, I had found that my sister had bought Lewis Carroll's 1920s Miniature Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When my Mum told us this, it had seemed so very funny at the time, given that the shoot we'd done that afternoon was Alice in Wonderland themed.

As I read this beautiful book, I feel immersed not only by the story but by the care one must take with the the fragile pages and delicate binding, and I was glad to discover that I wasn't the only one who loved the scent of old books and enjoyed that sweet smell that invades your senses as you read. I love old books, especially ones that need to be handled with extra care because they threaten to fall apart in your hands, recently my Mum and I visited a Book Trader's store, where I found myself instantly darting to the back of the shop where the old classics were. My eyes had scanned for A tale of two cities and Pride & Prejudice but settled on The Bronte Sisters and I found myself picking up Wuthering Heights. I also spotted many other classics I'd heard of, and then I started just stroking the spines of the books and picking out books not for their names but their covers - Beautifully bound with leather, pages so ancient they look as if they're about to crumble, pages that actually are about to crumble, or their size that have a satisfactory weight in your hands.

It was a different and wonderful experience, too, when I found myself in the penguin section, I've always loved the orange and white covers of penguin books. After leaving, I realised how much I missed old book stores.

This beautiful vintage ball gown was bought by my mum in the 80s (I'm pretty sure anyway) and was shortened a bit due to my mum's height. The vintage T-bars were a charity shop find for my mum to sell on Etsy, and having a small foot size, Jazz managed to fit into them. Other than the fluffy second-hand top hat in one photo, the only other thing added was the lace sash - as the beautiful colours and pattern of the dress are enough. The addition of orange lipstick went well with the orange colour in the pattern, as well as the beautiful blue sky that showed the weather was on our side for a shoot that day.

 Something that has always been a part of my love of old and vintage things, is the history of it, the mysterious life it had before it was worn wandering about fields for photoshoots or part of an outfit for going out. Whilst reading this Miniature Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I would wonder about previous owners, maybe if it was read aloud outside under the shade of a tree, while the listener made a daisy chain, like Alice herself.